The Alternatives to Violence Project California, through a California state grant, is expanding and establishing a community presence of workshops and volunteer facilitators within Butte County to support local community and High Desert Prison workshops. AVP’s experiential workshops focus on community building, communication skills, and conflict resolution for community members and inmates in an effort to reduce violence, incarceration and recidivism.
Occupy Beale Air Force Base
CPJC activists have led anti-militarization demonstrations at the site of Beale Air Force Base for many years, including protests against the Iraq war and military escalation in southwest Asia and around the world. Currently, monthly demonstrations focus upon the U.S. military use of drones to attack overseas and US-born peoples.
For more information and upcoming direct actions:
OccupyBealeAirForceBase
Chris Nelson (530-345-7590)
Cathy Webster (530-591-3225)
Drones allow aggressors to destroy targets and kill suspects extrajudicially, including children and innocent people, from a computer thousands of miles away. They can spy intimately on anyone, including citizens in the US, and can commit assassinations in defiance of international and U.S. law. 50 nations now have drones — an expanding insane proliferation.
Occupy Beale AFB demands an end to Drone Warfare, Surveillance, Proliferation by the U.S. Government and the CIA. Specifically:
- An immediate ban on the use of all drones for extrajudicial killing.
- A halt to all drone surveillance that assaults basic freedoms and inalienable rights and terrorizes domestic life in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
- A prohibition on the sale, and distribution of drones and drone technology to foreign countries in order to prevent the proliferation of this menacing threat to world peace, freedom and security.
- An end to lawless US drone warfare that violates many international laws and treaties.
Career Builders: Counter-Recruitment
What if they staged a war and nobody came? Sound far fetched? Not to those who know a veteran with a catastrophic injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, or who had a friend or loved one deploy and not return. Not for those who know a service person for whom the military did not live up to promises made by a recruiter.
But what job opportunities now exist in the U.S. for young people who lack privilege and connections to find gainful employment or need money for higher education? Career Builders works to present alternative work opportunities to local youth.
Career Builders: Counter Recruitment (CBCR) aims to counter the often overwhelming military promotional campaign that local students face on their high school campuses. CBCR provides accurate and under-reported information about the realities of military service and highlights alternatives to military involvement, including scholarship opportunities. CBCR communicates directly with local high school students by tabling near high school campuses over lunch periods and engages students through music, food, flyers, graphic exhibit panels and personal contact.
CBCR is seeking volunteers and interns of all ages, particularly of high school and college age, as well as volunteers with recent military experience, to help enrich the conversation with teenagers currently subject to pressure from recruiters to join the military. Your help with Facebook and blog postings, maintaining and transporting large information panels, publicity, set-up and breakdown of exhibits, and assistance with providing food and drink for students, would be welcomed.
The Career Builders: Counter Recruitment team has planning and information meetings at the Center every month, and volunteers table at least monthly near local high school campuses. Join CBCR, and make a difference in the life of a potential recruit!
Contact careerbuilders@chicopeace.org for more information.
Scholarship Opportunities
CPJC is committed to helping young people find employment alternatives outside of the military to ensure their futures are brighter and more healthy and peaceful. For that reason our counter recruitment group has made this list of scholarships you can apply to online, as well as places you can find more.
- Funding Education Beyond High School is the Department of Education’s guide to getting federal student aid.
- Fastweb is a large online resource for scholarships and other aid for paying for college.
- Collegescholarships.com has a large list of scholarships with a still updated scholarship of the month.
- Coca Cola Scholarship Program offers 250 4-year scholarships.
- The Thurgood Marshall College Fund offers one year awards of around $2,200 for any students based on academic merit. Their site also links to several other scholarships.
- The State Farm National Merit Scholarship Corporation offers scholarships to high school students based on merit.
- The UNCF has a wide variety of scholarships for African Americans.
- The NCAA offers scholarships for minority atheletes.
- The Ron Brown Scholar Program for African Americans graduating from high school.
- The Jackie Robinson Foundation offers scholarships to minority students.
- The Hispanic College Fund has several different scholarships for students of hispanic background.
- The Gates Millennium Scholars Program provides full scholarships for African American, Hispanic, American Indian or Pacific Islander students focusing on computer science, education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health or the sciences.
- The National Italian American Fund offers scholarships for Italian American students or students of other ethnic backgrounds majoring or minoring in Italian language, Italian studies, Italian American studies or a related field.
- Scholarship America has various scholarships available at different times.
Voice of the Veteran Speaker Series
Voice of the Veteran is an ongoing speaker series featuring veterans sharing their experience in the military with no media slant, recruiter advertising, or entertainment industry glorification of violence. Hear from primary sources about war and learn about what it is actually like to be in the military.
We have had Army veteran Major John Crosby (retired) who served from 1984 until 2004 and participated in Operation Just Cause and Iraqi Freedom presented February 2016. Marine veteran Corporal Isaac Zenk who also grew up moving around as the son of an Air Force officer and served himself from 2004-2008 and in Iraq twice presented March 2016. And Corporal Ron Toppi presented his story April 2016 of time in the Marine Corps in the 1980’s. These were the first presentations and we hope to have one a month during the California State University, Chico academic year so check here for the upcoming semester presentations by veterans on their time in the military.
This fall of 2016, we have another 3 Speakers lined up with Navy veteran Bill Mash serving from 1978-1982 sharing his story September 21st at 7:30PM going over his experiences as a submariner. Phil Elkins shared his saga in the Vietnam War as an Army draftee on October 19th at 7:30PM. The last presentation in November was Rev. Jessie Olson who was in the Army in the 90’s as a female soldier who also has a lot of experience helping thousands of veterans after her time in the military as a Veteran Service Officer.
Everybody’s Revolution: Exploring the Wheel of Integral Nonviolence
The wheel was adopted by the Chico Peace and Justice Center as a way of understanding the elements of peace and social justice and seeing their interconnections. Each “spoke” of the wheel addresses a group of related issues and problems in our world today: community, political action, spiritualism, health, poverty, environmental degradation, social cohesion, racism, and others.
The 10 Spokes on the Wheel are:
- Heart Unity: Forging connection and understanding across lines of race, religion, class, etc.
- Manual Labor toward self-reliance and simplicity
- Spiritual practice and fellowship
- Political Witness: Nonviolent action, engagement, and resistance
- Walking with the Poor: Service and mutual empowerment
- Building and nurturing community and interdependence
- Ecological Awareness and Responsibility: Honoring the unity of creation
- Health and Wholeness
- Withdrawing Support from the Violent Systems and Institutions: Building and nurturing nonviolent alternatives
- Right Sharing and Stewardship of Wealth and Resources
Chico Peace Vigil
Saturdays, rain or shine, at 3rd and Main, Chico. 12:30-1:30pm
The Chico Peace Vigil was the start of the Chico Peace & Justice Center.
The Chico Peace Vigil traces its history back to the tense Cold War years of the early 1960s. The U.S. military built Titan missiles and nuclear warheads that were to be stored in already-built underground bunkers in northeast Chico. Chico resident Wilhelmina Taggart, alarmed by this development, made weekly visits to the base to pray. Eventually the missiles were removed, but by then Willa was joined by Florence McLane and Helen Kinnee. Together they started what they called the Chico Peace Endeavor, and began holding a weekly peace vigil in downtown Chico. Fifty years later, the vigil still takes place.
While initially addressing the danger of nuclear proliferation and the arms race, the Peace Vigil has spoken against escalating militarism, has supported war tax resistance, has brought attention to poverty and hunger brought on by armed conflict, and to oppressive U.S. military intervention in other countries.
Sustaining the Peace Vigil is an enduring belief in the importance and power of non-violence, both as a moral value and as a tool to effect positive change.
Peace Panels Project
The Peace Panel Project (PPP) is a traveling sidewalk graphics art show designed to educate and inspire new activism. It confronts the abuse of governmental and corporate power; domestic violence; foreign policy violence; and environmental issues.
The purpose of the Peace Panel Project (PPP) is to to build the movement toward peace and justice.The main themes of the PPP are Nonviolent Communication, Ruses For War, Better World Shopping, Project Censored, awareness of military spending and activities, reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine,” and now environmental issues. The PPP serves college students of the Central Valley and citizens at large.
PPP’s goal is to help build the Green-Peace movement in the Central Valley to the percentage size that it is in Germany (20%)!
Access to reliable and useful information has become increasingly difficult since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which officially ended the legal requirement for accuracy in news, and allowed news organizations to consolidate and operate with a profit motive, rather than as a public service.
The Peace Panel Project (PPP) offers accurate and under-reported information about the issues of our dayby an engaging and original means that prioritizes the direct, interactive and personal communication not available via mainstream or online social media.
PPP plans to exhibit at nine colleges in the next 12 months, as well as several peace activist events.
PPP welcomes volunteers or interns an hour a week or more to work on PPP’s Facebook postings; blog postings; maintenance of the easels and panels; designing new panels; publicity; set up and break down of exhibits.
Interested in getting involved?
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